The Case of the Chicken Salad Sandwich
by thejacinthsong
Summary: The raucous giggling was definitely a bad sign. St. Valentine's Ficathon 2014: for maireemily.


_For maireemily:_

* * *

The raucous giggling was definitely a bad sign, Sherlock decided as he entered the building. He could hear the hysterics from his place in the hallway: Mrs. Hudson's reedy cackle, John's throaty guffaw, Mary's snort that she continued to swear didn't exist and Molly's stifled chuckles. This could not be good, especially not for him, since they were in _his _flat. He counted nine different possibilities to explain why they were laughing with such vigour; none of which ended well.

Nevertheless, Sherlock crept up the stairs, stopping every few steps to listen - they hadn't stopped to even _draw breath_. Perhaps there was a nitrous oxide leak, although Sherlock couldn't remember if he had stored any recently. They couldn't be drinking, because Mary was still breast-feeding and for a former assassin she was remarkably sensible as a mother. She had even instructed that John could not drink alcohol around her, in all fairness. John had protested, but Sherlock saw the logic (he'd had the sense not to share that with John).

"Stop creeping Sherlock - get in here!" Molly called through the door, banging her fist right where he had one ear pressed. He frowned, puzzled at how she could have possibly been able to hear him, because _no one _ever did, which was rather the point. But then the door was thrown open, and Molly stood there glowing and grinning at _him, _and Sherlock promptly lost his grip on his train of thought. He chanced a twitch of a smile at her cheeriness, and approached cautiously. She grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the sofa, where everyone was crowded and trying not to let their laughter escape (a pointless effort, as Sherlock could see right through them all, and they were clearly laughing at _his _expense).

"Hi Sherlock!" Mary and John chorused, and Sherlock _knew _that a shared smile of that nature would not be good for him because _it never was. _John clapped his hands around Sherlock's shoulders, and despite the perhaps not significant but notable differences in their heights, the former soldier easily manhandled Sherlock into a sitting position on the couch.

"Hullo dearie!" Mrs. Hudson barely managed, and Sherlock deduced that she had taken more than the allotted dose of her herbal soothers. Perhaps he should evaluate the correlation between the amount she ingested and her subsequent behaviour; it was certainly a thought.

Baby Rose Morstan-Watson looked as confused as Sherlock felt, and a wild urge grabbed him, to take her from Mary and run to his room, so that they could be alone and safe in their shared bewilderment. However, Molly's firm stance in the direct line between his seated position and the way to his bedroom implied that she was ready for him to bolt.

"_Why _are you are squawking like pigeons?" Sherlock finally snapped. Mrs. Hudson gestured at the black television screen, and then lost her pitiful attempt at controlling her laughter.

"Yes - _what? _The television? Yes, it's only actually useful if you press that little red button on the remote in order to see the colours." Mrs. Hudson didn't even get cross with him, scold him or smack him, she just giggled some more. This was very bad.

"You're right, _of course, _Sherlock." Molly told him, running a hand through his hair. His chest puffed out for a moment at the movement she knew soothed him and her praise, before it occurred to him that she was perhaps being patronising. He shot a quick look at her overly innocent smile, and began to grumble. He crossed his arms and sunk into the sofa, wanting his favourite dressing gown (partly because it was _Molly's _favourite and therefore always smelt like her) and John's revolver. Before he had the chance to demand both items, Molly moved away from him and to the television to fiddle with the controls, to Sherlock's further disgruntlement.

John cleared his throat. "You see, Sherlock - "

"No, no! Let me tell him!" Mary interrupted gleefully, elbowing her husband. "Molly was shopping for Rose's birthday this morning, and she found a DVD of an American programme called_ 'Sesame Street.'_"

"And your _point?" _Sherlock demanded, "Have your levels of cognition been reduced to that of a one-year old?" Mary tried to respond, but Rose began to fuss, so Mary turned to her daughter to reassure Sherlock's only remaining ally.

"Okay - okay! It's on!" Molly almost shouted, clicking the appropriate buttons at the still dark screen. Sherlock, still alone on the couch, considered stalking out, but now he was actually curious. Everyone stood around him without sitting; he tried to tug Molly down next to him but she resisted. "Sh - _watch." _

Sherlock begrudgingly sat through the opening ads and menu screen of the DVD; an abundance of fuzzy, multi-coloured creatures who spouted obvious, inelegant puns and counted... _things. _Finally, the screen opened to an orange puppet with a bulbous red nose and a tuft of black hair in a striped jumper. The puppet _("Look Rose, there's Bert!") _walked along the wall, looking around for something. Sherlock glanced up quizzically at John and Molly, but they just hushed him and pushed his face back towards the television, where the puppet had seemed to realise that his lunchbox was missing half a sandwich.

_"W-who could figure out what happened to the other half of my chicken salad sandwich?" _'Bert' asked despairingly, assumedly to the children on the other side of the screen. _"I know who could figure it out - a detective!" _

Cheesy music took over as the camera shot panned to a green puppet with a long overcoat, a magnifying glass... and a deerstalker hat. _Definitely not good, _Sherlock thought wildly.

_"Egad!" _The puppet announced in a highly dramatic and horrific English accent. _"The hunt's afoot! Show me the clues!"_

_"W-who are you?" _Orange asked with a nervous stammer. The green_ 'detective,' _Sherlock sneered silently_, _looked directly at the camera, rising up a few inches.

_"Sherlock Hemlock." _He exclaimed, as everyone around Sherlock burst out cackling. Sherlock had expected a random detective character - _not one based off him. _A collision of too many thoughts and emotions exploded in his brain, and Sherlock found himself frozen in his spot, unable to do anything but let his eyes widen and his mouth drop to his chest.

_"The world's greatest detective! My senses are keen, my mind is acute. Wherever I'm needed - I go. Whenever ... what were we talking about?"_

_"My - ah, lunchbox here."_

This must have been some sadistic form of revenge from Mycroft, Sherlock decided. No other person could do such an unspeakable thing to him... spinning off his person in a _children's programme? _And an _American _programme! The incompetent puppet that was supposed to be him was an embarrassment to Sherlock's legacy.

"The culprit is obviously the poor attempt at my 'doppelgänger.'" Sherlock barked, as the puppet extolled on his 'deductive skills.' This was outrageous; preposterous; uncalled for... _rude. _Finding adjectives to give (silent) voice to his fury helped as the orange blob confronted Sherlock's impostor about the true identity of the sandwich thief.

_"Egad, that's it! I remember! I ate the other half of your sandwich! How clever of me to figure it out!"_

"That last bit there sounds like you, Sherlock!" Mary chortled, swinging Rose in her arms, who had abandoned Sherlock to laugh and clap her hands at the puppets meant to entertain children of below-average intelligence. He would need to speak to Molly about her criteria for buying gifts for Rose, who was and would be extraordinary. His godchild was not to be exposed to the drivel of the average mind, and their ideological attempts to indoctrinate Rose into a normal, _dull _person.

_"How can I ever repay you?" _The orange, puppet version of Anderson asked, _dumbly, _this so-called adaptation of Sherlock's character, who had just admitted to _stealing the sandwich. _What kind of moral lessons in childhood expressed the importance of thanking the people who had admitted to committing crimes, and then _rewarding them?_

_"How about with the other half of the sandwich?" _'Sherlock Hemlock' suggested slyly, picking up the rest of the sandwich with green felt hands. The other puppet was left spluttering and stammering as the second half of his sandwich quickly disappeared, before the screen darkened. There was a moment of suspended silence: Sherlock's palpable irritation, and the heavy breaths of his so-called "family" as they tried to regain control while they watched his reaction. Then the moment passed, and the bloody laughter returned.

Imperiously, and with as much dignity as Sherlock could possibly muster, he stood and glided off to his room.

* * *

There were more of them.

More skits with the 'Sherlock Hemlock' character.

_Too many._

Sherlock tried phoning Mycroft to demand answers, but his older brother was too lost in his own hysterics to be of any valuable use, except to tell Sherlock that he had sent all of the videos to Mummy. Sherlock grimaced, and in a bout of temper, threw his phone at the wall and refused to pick it up again.

Finally, he took to the writers behind the blasphemy.

_"Co-written by Kitty Riley and Richard Brook..."_

The words froze Sherlock for several moments, caught up in the flashback of fear, when both of them represented a threat. But Moriarty was dead and Kitty Riley was humiliated and unemployable, so Sherlock breathed in deeply and pushed further. He found an interview of Kitty Riley, not long after his 'death,' in which the giggly, so-called journalist explained to an interviewer more interested in her cleavage than about her tryst with the poor, taken advantage actor Sherlock had abused, and their catharsis through writing.

He eventually shut off the exchange before it was through and called his lawyer. She too laughed at him when he explained the situation.

"You were dead Mr. Holmes! There's nothing we can do!"

It was the last straw, Sherlock thought threateningly, as he threw himself down onto his bed to sulk. He buried himself in his mind palace, drawing on the memories of when he had evoked wonder with his deductions (the vault was filled up mostly with Molly and John) until his dignity began to recover from its bruises.

He was slowly and eventually drawn back into reality with Molly's comforting fingers dragging through his hair, the knots her fingers caught on sending thrilling sparks down his spine. He breathed in her light perfume that he had given her, as the scent pleasantly touched his nose.

"Do you have more people outside to mock me?" Sherlock groused half-heartedly as he leaned into her touch, beginning to lose his presence of thought. Molly's soft laugh was far gentler this time; as if she was endeared by him. He was _not _endearing.

"No, everyone went home." Molly murmured. "We were only teasing Sherlock. It was really funny - and _cute." _

"I am not _cute." _Sherlock whined, pushing and turning his body so that his head was fully in her lap, and he could look up at her dancing eyes properly. Her loose hair framed his face and tickled his skin pleasantly.

"Of course you aren't." Molly agreed easily - _far too easily - _with one of his favourite smiles - the half, sweet curl to her lips which implied her contentedness with him. He had mesmerised every facial expression Molly Hooper possessed, and he did what he could to ensure that only smiles graced her lips (well, not _always; _there was a time and a place). "You're a big, strong, _fearsome _consulting detective; the _only one in the world." _He knew that she was teasing again, but she punctuated each word with a light kiss that distracted him. He decided not to tell her about the creators behind the character she found so amusing, and instead focused on rearranging their positions on the beds to ones he found preferable for what he intended to do.

He launched himself at her and promptly stole her breath from her lungs and kept it hostage. She was quickly weak with need and the barrage of hormones that assaulted her system, but he pushed until he had her gasping and pleading, just on the precipice, until he had extracted every assurance of his greatness from her lips, a reminder of his true prowess, before he allowed them both to lose themselves completely in each other.

Afterwards, he curled up to her as he whispered _proper deductions _in her ear, ones that he knew would delight her: what he had seen in her squirming and shivering form, and then, when she started to float towards sleep, he told her about the happiness Mrs. Hudson had found in her new beau, and their oncoming engagement (the man in question was a widower, gathering his nerve), the weightlessness to John's footsteps, and how he barely used his cane anymore and finally how Mary had yet to notice the new life that was beginning to swell in her uterus. Molly slipped into sleep with a tranquil smile and joy in her fluttering eyes, and Sherlock found himself quite content to lie still and watch her for awhile.

* * *

The next day there was a detailed post on John's insufferable blog, completed with all the links to the "Sherlock Hemlock" videos. Sherlock paced the flat as he ranted and snapped while Molly sat on the sofa wearing nothing but his purple shirt, breathless with laughter.

He made a note to contact Wiggins to remove the damned things before he lost his reputation.

Or worse, before Scotland Yard got their hands on them.

* * *

_A/N: You may blame the book I was reading to a four year old, as that is where I stumbled upon this delightful character. I didn't have much direction, from my "Valentine," but I hope you enjoyed this maireemily. I do apologise for the unabashed crack, as this is my first attempt at it, consisting mainly of a pouting Sherlock, who I enjoy._

_The link to the video (oh this is real, people) is here:_

_ watch?v=bo_svGP-iO4_

_And as Sherlock observed, to his utter dismay, there are other videos on Youtube, with the brilliant Sherlock Hemlock. Do enjoy._


End file.
